Accessibility

Accessibility

The target is WCAG 2.2 AA. The requirements are written in docs/redesign-brief.md (section 11); the checks are in docs/performance-gates.md. This page says what is built in, what a script checks on pull requests that change the site, and what no script can prove.

Built in

• Skip link first, then one header, a main navigation with an accessible name, one <main id="main"> and one footer on every page (layouts/baseof.html). scripts/check-landmarks.py fails a built page that breaks this.
• Native controls. The phone menu is a popover button and accordions are <details>, so keyboard and assistive technology behavior comes from the browser. No script is needed to open anything.
• Alt text is required for every informative image, and the build fails without it. See Images and alt text. Card thumbnails next to a title link are decorative and have empty alt text.
• Language is set on the <html> element.
• Dark-only, high-contrast tokens. One palette with amber on near-black. scripts/check-contrast.py computes the ratios of the token pairs from assets/css/tokens.css and fails below 4.5:1 for text and 3:1 for the focus ring.
• Visible focus on every control, in the accent color.
• Large targets. Controls are at least 44 by 44 CSS pixels, with the WCAG inline-text-link exception.
• Motion and forced colors. The stylesheet has prefers-reduced-motion and forced-colors rules.
• Search works without script. The page is a full index first, and the filter message is a polite live region. See Search and tags.
• Real text in the DOM for disclosures, not images of text.

Checked on site-changing pull requests

The browser gate is skipped for a pull request that only changes documentation (docs/*.md, docs/wiki/*.md, README.md); see docs/ci-parallel.md.

scripts/browser-gate.py loads each template in headless Chrome and fails on:

Rule	What it catches
axe	Any axe-core violation with the tags wcag2a, wcag2aa, wcag21a, wcag21aa, wcag22aa or best-practice. axe-core is vendored in tools/axe/ with its hash pinned and is never loaded from the network.
overflow	A horizontal scroll bar, at 1440, 1024, 768, 393 and 390 pixels, at 200 percent zoom and at 320 CSS pixels (WCAG reflow).
target	A control under 44 by 44 pixels.
tab	The first Tab stop is not the skip link; a tabindex above 0; focus order different from document order; a control that is off screen or has no focus ring; at phone widths, a Menu button that does not open with Enter, close with Escape and return focus.
fit	A short page that does not fit 1920 by 930 without scrolling (Home, Social, Support, Privacy, 404).
console, network	Console errors, CSP violations, failed requests.

scripts/test-browser-gate.sh runs the gate against fixture sites, each broken in one way, so a rule that stopped working is caught.

What no script proves

Be honest about the limits. From docs/performance-gates.md:

• axe cannot decide color contrast where text sits on the page's background gradient. The token pairs are checked by script and the worst case was calculated by hand.
• No screen reader is run. Names, roles and states are checked by axe only.
• Forced colors and print are not exercised by the gate.
• The Chrome on the runner is not pinned.

Automated checks cannot prove conformance. A keyboard and zoom pass by a person on each template is still required before a launch.

For authors

• Write alt text for every image and describe what it shows.
• One <h1> per page (the title) and no skipped heading levels.
• Link text should name its destination. Do not use "click here".
• Do not rely on color alone, and do not embed content that the Content Security Policy would block anyway.